


Remembrance in D Major

by wolfzaa



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - World War I, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Original Character Death(s), it is for me tho, it's still happy ending I promise, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 02:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10527024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfzaa/pseuds/wolfzaa
Summary: Gary forgot how to breathe properly when he caught the sight of Henry’s fingers across the neat row of wooden keys.  Everything Gary had ever heard turned dull in a sudden.  Here he wasn’t hearing a song, but a piece of art.He wondered if the man could drown anyone with his music, making them choked with loneliness and passion the way he was experiencing right now.---Eggsy wasn’t so sure if he should be terrified or surprised or fascinated the first time he saw Harry fought.  Harry’s movements were flawless and efficient.  He wasted no more than a second to glance at his target and made his move.  Eggsy didn’t dare to blink.  He didn’t want to miss anything.Eggsy almost choked on those movements alone, with admiration or with fright, he didn’t even know.





	

 

_London, 1906._

_There was a grand piano in the middle of Gary’s house._

_It was inherited and ancient.  Gary’s first memory was the picture of his mother playing that piano with his father standing by her side, as happy as a couple could be.  Gary was no different.  He was in love with it; fascinated by how wonderfully the sound could be created from those black and white keys.  It was sweet and serene; such peaceful and full of emotions Gary couldn’t quite place.  He was obsessed with the sound of it, even._

_He was ten when he gave it his first try, wishing he could play it better._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

London, 2003.

When Eggsy was ten, a random priest had tried to teach him to play a piano.

He was running away from home at that time, for no particular reason other than running away from his supposed to be new father.  It was the first time mom’s boyfriend hit her in front of him.  Eggsy was scared shitless but still tried to stop him.  He ended up being hit himself, hard in the face which left him black eyes and swollen cheeks for weeks.  Therefore he ran away; though there was nowhere to go.

He heard a soft muffled sound of music coming from a church, a tad too far from his home but he didn’t care for a time being, and decided to take a look.  The priest looked up from the piano and took him in, patching him up then playing the instrument for the poor boy with a gentle smile.

Little did he know that the sound itself scared Eggsy more than mom’s boyfriend could have done.  It was too sweet and somehow depressive, like he could hear something no one else couldn’t.  When the priest guy held his hands up to the keyboard, telling him to try pressing any key, Eggsy decided that he didn’t like the sound of it at all.

No, dislike might be an understatement; Eggsy despised it with all his soul.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Gary believed that music was the most powerful weapon in the world when one particular man had moved from London to his village._

_He was a nobleman named Henry, a little bit older than his parents.  Gary found him strange, but he had nothing against being different from others.  His first thought was that Henry was just an ordinary boring old man; yet everyday, there would be this very good music floating out of his window at precisely two in the afternoon.  Gary had never heard anything so calm and beautiful.  It drew him in, luring him as though he was a moth to a flame._

_It was breathtaking._

_Gary forgot how to breathe properly when he caught the sight of Henry’s fingers across the neat row of wooden keys.  In a sudden, everything Gary had ever heard turned dull compared to this.  Here he wasn’t hearing a song, but a piece of art.  When Henry stopped his hands and called him out of the blue, Gary blushed furiously but stepped into the house nonetheless._

_“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to---”_

_“Don’t be,” Henry cut in. “No musician denies a good audience.  Gary, isn’t it?”_

_The boy smiled shyly.  He sat on an armchair Henry offered and waited eagerly to hear what the man would play up next.  Henry didn’t have any sheet music in front of him as he narrowed his eyes, losing into his own thoughts for a mere second.  Then he started playing.  His fingers splayed elegantly with grace and confidence; yet there was something hiding within every note and tune, sounding a lot like loneliness.  Gary watched the man’s face and his heart ached for no reason as he noticed how much better Henry could play with an audience._

_Henry was a lonely man.  An artist, but a lonely man without question._

_Gary wondered if the man could drown anyone with his music, making them choked with loneliness and passion the way he was experiencing right now._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first time Eggsy saw Harry fought, he couldn’t avert his eyes to anywhere else.

He first thought how dead Harry would be, because, well, what chance a fifty-year-old man got against Dean’s gang anyway?  They had knives and guns and Harry was definitely outnumbered.  Then the man knocked one of them down with one graceful whip and the table were turned, just like that.

Harry fought like everything he did; vicious and fatal and effortless.  Eggsy wasn’t so sure if he should be terrified or surprised or fascinated since that bloody umbrella was fucking _superb_.  Harry’s movements were flawless and efficient.  He wasted no more than a second to glance at his target and made his move.  Eggsy didn’t dare to blink.  He didn’t want to miss anything.

Eggsy didn’t know who the fuck this guy was, but he wasn’t a tailor for sure.  He wasn’t like those snobbish aristocrats looking down from the ivory tower either.  Eggsy couldn’t quite sort out how he was supposed to feel right now.  It felt just like many years ago, when that priest tried to teach him the goddamn piano.  That uniquely sweet sound was too serene to the point of terrifying, just like Harry’s movements.

Eggsy almost choked on those alone, with admiration or with fright, he didn’t even know.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Gary loved every moment of playing the piano, especially with Henry by his side._

_It vibrated, the note, sending a good kind of shivers through his spine every time he touche the keys.  Gary was practicing on the melody while Henry helped playing the chord for him, and the result was glorious.  Henry had his magic with all the notes.  He changed everything Gary played into another piece of his marvelous art that Gary alone wouldn’t even have a chance to dream of._

_He fell in love, at that very moment._

_Gary never talked about it with anyone, not even Rosaline, his childhood friend.  The boy knew very well how it was forbidden; how it shouldn’t have ever happened, so he kept it quiet.  Unfortunately, he had fallen too hard to get back up again.  Henry’s performance and his eyes and his smile and everything he did had been trapped inside Gary’s heart.  It was impossible to forget anything that happened between the two of them.  He couldn’t force himself to stop it._

_He just wanted Henry, right here with him._

_He needed nothing in return; only Henry’s stay.  The man was sitting beside him on the bench as his fingers worked their magic, encouraging him to continue the song.  Gary was already lightheaded by the surrounding sound but didn’t stop his hands, letting every bit of his heart into the notes he played and savouring the moment as much as he could._

_Music was the most powerful weapon in the world.  Gary was more than happy to die because of it._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Eggsy spent his last twenty four hours before the final test in Harry’s house, learning rules to become a gentleman the Kingsman’s way; or maybe it was just Harry’s way, he wasn’t quite sure.

At one point, the older man took out a vinyl and let the classic filled the air.  Eggsy made a face at the sound of the piano, looking back at Harry with incredulous eyes.

“You like this shit?  For real?”

“You don’t have to like it, but as a gentleman, you are bound to know how to appreciate the classics,” answered Harry. “For example, this piece is called Canon in D Major, and---”

“Yeah, I know that one,” Eggsy grunted, “And I hate it.”

“Is there any particular reason you want to elaborate?”

“Dunno.  That thing just weird the shit out of me,” Eggsy mumbled.  His eyes shone bright with disgust while Harry slightly, politely, arched his eyebrow up in question.  The blonde didn’t answer to that, nor he met Harry’s eye contact as he put down his martini glass and defensively crossed his arms around his chest.  He had loathed that piece since he was ten.  It was the first song the priest had showed him.

Harry subtly sighed then led him to the piano in his living room.  Eggsy trailed after him even though this eerie feeling was killing him inside.  He hated that picture, with Harry sitting there, fingers tracing along the keyboard as if he was going to play that fucking thing.

The little voice in the deepest corner of his mind was screaming hysterically, like he was about to die seeing Harry with a piano _again_ though he had never seen anything like that before.  Eggsy’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt and it wasn’t in the good way.  His lungs were stuck and it started to get harder to breathe, like he was dying, like he was falling...

Eggsy strode close and snatched Harry’s hand away from the keyboard.  He could see how Galahad was frowning but ignored it still.

“Eggsy?”

The boy kept his mouth shut, fingers wrapped tight around Harry’s wrist.  He could leave a bruise with that strength but Harry didn’t seem to mind.  The man just dropped his other hand from the piano slowly before he turned his head back to the younger, boring his eyes into Eggsy’s own.

Eggsy didn’t know what to do.  He just didn’t like that fucking piano, the same way he always hated when someone called him _‘Gary’_.

He didn’t even know how to explain this weird sensation creeping up his spine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_In 1914, there was a war._

_Gary had signed up, as every boy in the village had.  Henry looked at him as if he wanted to say something but held it back every time Gary asked.  The look made Gary felt like he was far too young; for Henry, not for the army, but didn’t mentioned it, lest he blurted out something he should not.  No one still needed to know what happened inside his heart, not that he thought Henry felt any differ.  They just didn’t need to put it into words.  It was perfect like that.  
_

_Where he was sent to wasn’t an active service.  There was a hospital and a church nearby where he heard a familiar song one day, Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, Henry’s favourite, and he smiled at the preacher behind the piano._

_“Would you mind if I play?”_

_The preacher shook his head.  Everyone gathered around and Gary was glad they had a chance to listen to his piece of love, at least when he still had time._

_Only Henry wasn’t there to hear him._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“This piece is well-known as relaxing and harmonious.  I assumed it’s different for you, isn’t it?”

Eggsy rolled his eyes. “Relaxing my arse.”

“What about it, exactly?”

“Told ya I dunno,” Eggsy grumbled under his breath. “How could anyone like it anyway?  It’s just creepy, bruv.  How could _you_ even like it?”

“Maybe I could heard something I don’t have.”

“Such as?”

Harry paused, frowning. “Some emotion I might have long forgotten after I became Kingsman, I supposed.  If you asked me, I’d say art and music appreciation are important to people like us.  You should consider it as a way to keep us human, my dear boy.”

“What kind of emotion ya talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Love, maybe.”

Eggsy tucked his hand back into his pocket, murmuring quietly to himself, too quiet for Harry to catch it all, _“That’s why it’s scary as fuck, goddammit!”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Gary was sent to the front as war went on.  He had promised his parents in his letter to go back home safe and sound.  He had promised Henry he would go back no matter what happened, and Henry believed him; or at least he tried to believe him._

_Gary didn’t mean to lost his arms in explosion; both of them.  He didn’t mean to break his promise._

_The boy couldn’t help but smile and start humming Canon in D.  He saw a nurse leaning in with a towel in her hands, tears streaming down her face in silence.  Gary choked out a laugh, trying to finish his piece altogether.  His love hanged rich in the air but his voice was swallowed back by a hiss of pain and a scream.  He was laughing.  He was crying.  He couldn’t even breathe now._

_Then suddenly, it stopped._

_Everything._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Harry’s house was empty, but his ghost was still there.

Everything was left exactly where it had been when Eggsy had left before; his stuff, his wine and whiskey, his collections, his butterflies, his paintings, and, of course, that fucking stupid piano.

Eggsy came back eventually after the Valentine incident.  He placed the same vinyl Harry had showed him on the player and waited for the eerie sweet sound to crack into life.  The blonde closed his eyes through the whole piece.  His eyes was burning but he didn’t cry; at least he told himself he didn’t.

His heart broke into million pieces, and he didn’t know how to put it back together.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he whispered. “I still hate this song so fucking much.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Henry stopped playing piano when the stained uniform was sent back to the village._

_The war ended three months later._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Eggsy was waiting in front of Arthur’s office with a new report in his hands.  He flicked his eyes down to the word _severely injured_ instead of _died in service_ and shook his head slightly.  _I should have known_ , he thought to himself.  _I fucking should._

“If you dare to die on me again after I’ve re-written your report, I’m gonna fucking kill you myself this time.”

And he swore he would smash all those fucking vinyls into pieces, just you waited.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Henry sat down on the bench for the last time, twenty three years later._

_He heard a familiar laughter right beside his ears as he placed his slightly shaking hands on the keyboard, tracing along the row of dusty white._

_He took a deep breath, and started playing the very same piece._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A radio was left open with the classic Pachelbel’s in the recovery room of Harry Hart, when the man’s eyelids fluttered open for the first time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is non beta/brit-picked and English is not my first language, so sorry for any error you might see here. Kudos and comments are always welcome and thanks for reading! :D
> 
> Btw, Thai version [หาอ่านได้ทางนี้เลยค่ะ](https://writer.dek-d.com/dek-d/writer/viewlongc.php?id=1197067&chapter=59)


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